Mr. Arndt's notes to his translation are lean and derivative but even so he manages to make several mistakes. The statement (p. xi) that the third edition of Eugene Onegin «appeared on the day of Pushkin's death» is wrong: it appeared not later than January 19, 1837, Old Style, that is at least ten days before the poet's death. He began writing Eugene Onegin not «on May 28, 1822», as Arndt (led astray by another bungling commentator and adding his own mistake) notes, but on May 9, 1823. The statuette of Napoleon with folded arms in Chapter Seven is not a «bust» (as stated in a note on p. 191): normal busts do not have arms to fold. The remark on p. 223 that «... Prolasov has been proposed» to fill in a gap in the printed text (first line of Eight: xxvi) is nonsense, since «Prolasov» never existed, being merely a comedy name (meaning «climber» or «vile sycophant») preserved in Pushkin's fair copy and misapplied by some editors to Andrey Saburov, director of the Imperial theaters.
Mr. Arndt's most bizarre observation, however, comes on page vi, towards the end of his preface: «The present new translation ... is not aimed primarily at the academic and literary expert, but at a public of Englishspeaking students and others interested in a central work of world literature in a compact and readable form». — which is tantamount to proclaiming: «I know this is an inferior product but it is gaily colored and nicely packed, and is, anyway, just for students and such people».
It is only fair to add that this «brilliant» (as said on the upper-side of the volume) and «splendid» (as said on its underside) new translation has won one half of the third annual Bollingen prize for the best translation of poetry in English (as the librarian James T. Babb of the Yale University Library announced on November 19, 1963, in New Haven, Conn.). The committee making the awards included Professors Peyre, Rene Wellek, and John Hollander, of Yale; and Professor Reuben A. Brouwer, of Harvard University. (I rely on Steve Kezerian, Director of the Yale University News Bureau, for the spelling of these names). Representing the permanent committee of administration at Yale was Donald G. Wing, Associate Yale Librarian. One cannot help wondering if any of the professors really read this readable work — or the infinitely remote great poem of their laureate's victim.
Montreux, December 23, 1963
Published in The New York Review of Books on April 30, 1964. A «Second Printing, revised» of Arndt's «translation» appeared later (1965?) but despite the note saying (p. v) that «several emendations were suggested by Vladimir Nabokov's criticisms at various times» this «revised» version still remains as abominable as before.
A REPLY TO MY CRITICS
In regard to my novels my position is different. I cannot imagine myself writing a letter-to-the-editor in reply to an unfavorable review, let alone devoting almost a whole day to composing a magazine article of explanation, retaliation, and protest. I have waited at least thirty years to take notice — casual and amused notice — of some scurvy abuse I met with in my «V. Sirin» disguise, but that pertains to bibliography. My inventions, my circles, my special islands are infinitely safe from exasperated readers. Nor have I ever yielded to the wild desire to thank a benevolent critic — or at least to express somehow my tender awareness of this or that friendly writer's sympathy and understanding, which in some extraordinary way seem always to coincide with talent and originality, an interesting, though not quite inexplicable phenomenon.
If, however, adverse criticism happens to be directed not at those acts of fancy, but at such a matter-of-fact work of reference as my annotated translation of Eugene Onegin (hereafter referred to as EO), other considerations take over. Unlike my novels, EO possesses an ethical side, moral and human elements. It reflects the compiler's honesty or dishonesty, skill or sloppiness. If told I am a bad poet, I smile; but if told I am a poor scholar, I reach for my heaviest dictionary.
I do not think I have received all the reviews that appeared after EO was published; I fail to locate a few that I was sure I had in my chaotic study; but judging by the numerous ones that did reach me, one might conclude that literal translation represents an approach entirely devised by me; that it had never been heard of before; and that there was something offensive and even sinister about such a method and undertaking. Promoters and producers of what Anthony Burgess calls «arty translations» — carefully rhymed, pleasantly modulated versions containing, say, eighteen percent of sense plus thirty-two of nonsense and fifty of neutral padding are I think more prudent than they realize. While ostensibly tempted by impossible dreams, they are subliminally impelled by a kind of self-preservation. The «arty translation» protects them by concealing and camouflaging ignorance or incomplete information or the fuzzy edge of limited knowledge. Stark literalism, on the other hand, would expose their fragile frame to unknown and incalculable perils.
It is quite natural, then, that the solidly unionized professional paraphrast experiences a surge of dull hatred and fear, and in some cases real panic, when confronted with the possibility that a shift in fashion, or the influence of an adventurous publishing house, may suddenly remove from his head the cryptic rosebush he carries or the maculated shield erected between him and the specter of inexorable knowledge. As a result the canned music of rhymed versions is enthusiastically advertised, and accepted, and the sacrifice of textual precision applauded as something rather heroic, whereas only suspicion and bloodhounds await the gaunt, graceless literalist groping around in despair for the obscure word that would satisfy impassioned fidelity and accumulating in the process a wealth of information which only makes the advocates of pretty camouflage tremble or sneer.
These observations, although suggested by specific facts, should not be construed in a strictly pro domo sua sense. My EO falls short of the ideal crib. It is still not close enough and not ugly enough. In future editions I plan to defowleric it still more drastically. I think I shall turn it entirely into utilitarian prose, with a still bumpier brand of English, rebarbative barricades of square brackets and tattered banners of reprobate words, in order to eliminate the last vestiges of bourgeois poesy and concession to rhythm. This is something to look forward to. For the moment, all I wish is merely to put on record my utter disgust with the general attitude, amoral and Philistine, towards literalism.
It is indeed wonderful how indifferent most critics are to the amount of unwillful deceit going on in the translation trade. I recall once opening a copy of Bely's Petersburg in English, and lighting upon a monumental howler in a famous passage about a blue coupe which had been hopelessly discolored by the translator's understanding kubovyy (which means «blue») as «cubic»! This has remained a model and a symbol. But who cares and why bother? Mr. Rosen in The Saturday Review (November 28, 1964) ends his remarks on rhymed versions of Eugene Onegin with the expression of a rapturous hope: «It only remains for a talented poet like Robert Lowell to take advantage [of these versions] to produce a poem in English that really sings and soars». But this is an infernal vision to me who can distinguish in the most elaborate imitation the simple schoolboy howler from the extraneous imagery within which it is so pitifully imbedded. Again — what does it matter? «It is part of the act», as Mr. Edmund Wilson would say. The incredible errors in the translations from the Russian which are being published nowadays with frenetic frequency are dismissed as trivial blemishes that only a pedant would note.